It leads to extreme weather: In 2012, the United States was stricken by a severe drought in its south and southwest, torrential rains in Beijing killed more than 70 people, half of the Philippines capital, Manila, was submerged by rains, and flash-floods and landslides in Bangladesh affected a million people.

Now there are wildfires in Australia, spreading with rare and dangerous speed. And with temperatures predicted to hit a record high of 52 C on Monday, many fear they won’t be stopped any time soon. (Australia’s highest recorded temperature is 50.7 C, set in 1960.)

“You don’t get conditions worse than this,” New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the Associated Press.

Wildfires are common in the Australian summer, but these are spreading more quickly than most. And with soaring temperatures and high wind speeds, there is concern that the damage from these fires could be worse than most.

It is a warning sign, says Danny Harvey, a University of Toronto professor specializing in global warming and climate change.

“As the Earth gets warmer, we expect the frequency and severity of wildfires to increase,” said Harvey. “If you look at trends in the U.S., Canada and Russia, they all show either more frequent or more severe fire in the past decade and they are correlated to temperatures.”

He attributes the Australian wildfires to “probably, mostly a natural fluctuation” made worse by global warming.

For days, firefighters have battled raging wildfires across southeastern Australia and as they evacuated national parks, authorities said blistering temperatures and high winds led to “catastrophic” conditions in some areas.

Wildfires have razed 50,000 hectares of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania and New South Wales since Friday. All state forests and national parks were closed as a precaution and fire bans were in place Tuesday as temperatures surpassed 45 C in some areas.

No deaths have been reported, but officials in Tasmania were still trying to find some 100 residents who have been missing since last week when a fire tore through the small town of Dunalley, destroying around 90 homes.

The connection between rising temperatures and frequency of wildfires is clear, say experts.

Wildfires need it to be hot, dry and windy in order to spread far and wide, says Mike Flannigan of University of Alberta. He specializes in fire and climate interaction. “The hotter it is, the drier fuels get and there is a greater chance of igniting a fire,” he said. “It is a recipe for catastrophic fires.”

Annually, about 350 to 450 million hectares burned across the world in wildfires. “That’s the size of India,” he said.

Scientists have estimated that fire activity has been picking up since the ’60s and ’70s, he said.

Not every year will be bad, said Flannigan. “But we expect more area burned.”

As the temperature rises, so do the chances of extreme weather. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its 2012 report that heat waves, high tides, hurricanes, rains and droughts will all intensify.

By the end of the century, the average global temperature could rise between 1.6 and 4.4 degrees Celsius — depending, partially, on how much carbon we emit.

A report released Tuesday said that 2012 was the warmest on record for the U.S. and the second worst for weather extremes, including drought, hurricanes and wildfires.

According to the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, which takes into account temperatures as well as tropical storms and droughts, 11 disasters in 2012 caused at least $1 billion in damage.